tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post2731624214192371288..comments2015-03-30T16:51:29.695-04:00Comments on In the Middle: Kalamazoo 2009Jeffrey Cohenhttps://plus.google.com/110433684739546897626noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-49719300477282792422009-05-16T12:50:00.000-04:002009-05-16T12:50:00.000-04:00I loved what you said on the panel about the place...I loved what you said on the panel about the place you wrote Seven Theses from. I've been having a few conversations with a few different people lately about how receptive (or not) the field of Anglo Saxon studies is to various threads and theories and tangents and focuses (I'm trying not to be too specific here), and while I haven't run screaming yet, I have certainly encountered that "outside" feeling, and it hasn't always been passive and accidental and simply a function of my not knowing very much just yet. Gatekeeping and resistance happen. Ugh, I think I'm stepping in it here, but my point is, I guess, just that I'm glad you shared that, and it really spoke to me in my own life and work right now, and that's all I'll say on the matter.<br /><br />Sorry if we made you uncomfortable - I guess it's one thing to compose notes for a talk thinking of the seated attendees out there, and another to realize, when it's time to speak from the notes, that you've managed to forget that you've done a good bit of 3rd person writing in ref to somebody who is now sitting *right next to you.* In any case, it was a very real pleasure to be on that panel, and I was very pleased with how the roundtable went - it went much better than I'd dared hope.<br /><br />Finally, I'll join the chorus on the future of ITM - no way! I don't know what I'd do without this blog!Karmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09651110371762568682noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-74958775812439271022009-05-13T01:42:00.000-04:002009-05-13T01:42:00.000-04:00During the Q&amp;A, I confided that rereading the ...<I>During the Q&amp;A, I confided that rereading the &quot;Seven Theses&quot; so many years after composing the essay reminded me of the loneliness that animated the project: I had just finished graduate school, was in a nontenure track job, was wondering if medieval studies was really the discipline I could spend my life within ... and I was writing to a community that I could not yet discern, but one I deeply wanted to arrive. If there is a sadness palpable in the theses, and if there is a hope for a thing that did not yet exist, the sadness and the hope come from their moment of writing as much as from the monsters with whom they hold fellowship.</I>I was just telling one of my grad student colleagues today that I hoped no one around noticed that I teared up a bit when you said this.<br /><br />I hope ITM does go for another 1,182 more posts. I've only just found it, after all!gabriel gryffynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07398525309690184249noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-5117282955365975452009-05-12T22:13:00.000-04:002009-05-12T22:13:00.000-04:00I would just die if this blog came to an end; it i...I would just die if this blog came to an end; it is one of my spiritual outposts. As well as a family. Enough said.<br /><br />And to everything Mary Kate said: word.Eileen Joyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13756965845120441308noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-2812665138574838562009-05-12T20:22:00.000-04:002009-05-12T20:22:00.000-04:00That was a beautiful, beautiful comment Mary Kate....That was a beautiful, beautiful comment Mary Kate. Thank you.Jeffrey J. Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17346504393740520542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-2844619889783261492009-05-12T15:44:00.000-04:002009-05-12T15:44:00.000-04:00I was observing that even if we did end the blog t...<I>I was observing that even if we did end the blog today, no one could argue that we haven't had a good, long run. But a better run is to continue for at least 1,182 more posts.</I> I was planning on keeping writing for at least that long, though apparently I'll have the occasional four-month interruption in my blogging due to "major learning" in terms of projects and teaching. <br /><br />But to pick up on a thread you raise here, Jeffrey, what I think is most interesting is that this has been a very "together" kind of a year for the four of us. We were all in the same place a number of times -- SEMA, the ASSC lecture, Kzoo -- and three of the four gathered more than once. I think part of writing on a blog is allowing it, to modify an Aelfrician phrase, to be that which it is. <br /><br />"beo thaet thaet thu eart". Be that which you are. So many blogs tend to do that endless navel gazing of "mission" or "purpose." Sometimes that seems quite analogous to graduate school, or a writing course -- what are we here for? I think what I've realized -- and perhaps what you're pointing to in your last paragraph, Jeffrey -- is that this question isn't always as productive as it could be. It tends to emphasize things that aren't actually weaknesses but strengths, but it does so in a way that affirms a model of scholarship I think I ultimately disagree with -- the idea that thought should always be complete when shared. It may well be true we've got differences. <I>We've been together long enough for some fractures to be evident, for the changes time brings to move us into spheres that are not as concentric as they might once have been.</I> But I think as you identify in the last bit of your post -- that's precisely what makes us such good academic colleagues and ultimately such good friends. Part of what I have learned from being on ITM is that it models a sort of outward expansion of friendship and scholarly comraderie. I go forth to ISAS this summer, Eileen to her duties with postmedieval, you to continued work on MEMSI and Karl to his first book (among many other things for each of us) -- and as we do so, we take the very best of what has been produced on ITM in terms of community (and I do mean that to include every single person who comments or reads the blog, too) to a wider world, a bigger scholarly community. And then, hopefully, we also bring parts of those experiences and thoughts back here, making it richer specifically because of those experiences and (sometimes) difficulties and over-busy-ness.<br /><br /><I>Then again, we did spend a great deal of time together at Kalamazoo: never just the four of us, but always enjoying each other's company within a larger group. Maybe we did not set apart time to talk about ITM because we have grown so comfortable with each other that we do not need to worry about the future, about the what next. Perhaps we have the confidence to know that future is already secure.<br /><br />Perhaps we have everything we need in this moment now.</I>I think you've already expressed -- better than I'll ever manage -- precisely what I'm attempting to articulate. Because every future is a becoming, we don't need a staticity, or even agreement. What we do have, what I value so deeply, is our ability to speak and think across those lines and fractures -- and to bring others in. The blog will never be finished -- and that's precisely the point. Even a blog post is unfinished -- you've modeled here the kind of processual thinking that I value so highly, the ability to be transparent about the PROCESS of thinking rather than the relic status of "having had thought". <br /><br />Thinking with each and every one of you -- the ITM community -- makes me a better scholar. And I'm grateful, endlessly, for the becoming we do together.Mary Kate Hurleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14892991966276345782noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-39203209502867662152009-05-12T15:18:00.000-04:002009-05-12T15:18:00.000-04:00I wasn't implying that! I was observing that even ...I wasn't implying that! I was observing that even if we did end the blog today, no one could argue that we haven't had a good, long run. But a better run is to continue for at least 1,182 more posts.Jeffrey J. Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17346504393740520542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-52307396301770527832009-05-12T14:25:00.000-04:002009-05-12T14:25:00.000-04:00we've had a good run at ITMWait, what?
We're still...<I>we've had a good run at ITM</I>Wait, what?<br />We're still running.<br />I have plenty of posts left in me, as soon as I get over this semester.<br />Sheesh.Karl Steelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03353370018006849747noreply@blogger.com